My new Samsung Galaxy tablet has me exploring all kinds of neat tricks. Did you know it’s possible to dictate into your Android device and have it transcribed on your computer? If you really want to push the envelope, you can have it transcribed both on your computer and your device at the same time. Here’s how:

Items You’ll Need

Google Drive: I have only tried this using Google Drive. It might work on Dropbox, Skydrive or any of the other cloud storage drives, but I can’t say for sure. I do know it works perfectly fine with Google.

A secondary device. In my case the secondary device is my laptop. You can use a laptop, desktop or even another mobile device.

Here’s what you do:

Open Google Drive and create a new document. You’ve got to create the document in Google Drive. It won’t work if you create a document and upload it to the drive.

Give the new document a name and save it.

Open the document on both devices. If you created the document using your mobile device, go over to your desk/laptop and open the document there. Or if you created the document on your laptop, open it on your mobile device. Half of the fun is watching the magic happen on both devices simultaneously.

Access the dictation software on your mobile device and begin dictating to the newly created document. As you dictate to the document on your mobile device you should be able to see the software transcribe your dictation on the computer.

Pretty cool, huh.

Remote Microphone

In essence, you’ve turned your mobile device into a remote microphone. You’re able to dictate to your desktop without the expense of purchasing voice recognition software like Dragon’s Deluxe Naturally Speaking. The speech recognition software on the mobile device is rudimentary and doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Naturally Speaking, but since it’s already on your mobile device, might as well use it.

As a freelance writer working from home I look at this as a cool trick, not a necessary tool. However, a business person traveling home after an exhausting meeting could conceivably dictate the meeting minutes while someone in the office proof reads it. This not only serves as a paper trail of the events, but the memo is dictated while everything is fresh in the mind.

Taking it to the Next Level

I’ve only tried this trick on two devices. With cloud storage it is possible to have several people view the document while it’s being transcribed. I’m not so sure if there’s much value in doing that, but it’s fun to know it can be done.

After performing this little trick I had to ask myself, “Can the mobile device’s voice recognition software replace Dragon’s Naturally Speaking? ” The answer to that question is the subject of my next post.

Hi Douglas,
This is an old post and it’s been a while since I’ve used the feature. Honestly, I can’t give you a definitive answer. Nowadays, devices come with built-in apps that allow you to dictate, send texts and emails.

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